Strikes Disrupt The Paris Opera At Two Sites

By ALAN RIDING

Published: November 28, 2000

PARIS, Nov. 27—
Strikes at the Paris National Opera are hardly rare, with four of seven scheduled performances of Prokofiev's ''War and Peace'' canceled earlier this season. But the labor dispute that erupted here today is potentially the most serious in recent memory, with technicians at both the Palais Garnier and the Bastille Opera threatening to disrupt 41 opera and ballet performances through Jan. 21.

At the premiere of a new production of Mozart's ''Zauberflote'' at the Palais Garnier tonight, the cast wore costumes and sang their roles, but no sets were changed (anticipating this, music critics were invited to Saturday's dress rehearsal), while this evening's performance of Donizetti's ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' at the Bastille Opera was given in concert version.

A spokeswoman for the Paris Opera said that it was impossible to predict what would happen in the coming days. ''The house management believes there will be a settlement, but things keep changing all the time,'' she said.

At the heart of the dispute is a 1998 law reducing France's workweek to 35 hours. The measure is particularly hard to apply in the performing arts because of the variables of rehearsals and performances. In the case of the Paris Opera, which has a permanent orchestra, chorus and ballet corps as well an army of technicians, the law has required management to negotiate with a score of trade unions.

Four of six technicians' unions are demanding a 32-hour week spread over four days accompanied by a 10 percent wage increase over three years. But management, which recently granted wage increases to the orchestra, chorus and ballet corps to compensate for increased working hours, has said that it cannot satisfy the technicians' demands without drastically reducing the 380 performances scheduled each year in the two opera houses.

Hugues Gall, who has been credited with raising the artistic standards of the Paris Opera since becoming its director in 1995, has said that he is caught in the cross-fire between the unions and the government since he does not control the opera house's purse strings. ''It is up to the government to assume responsibility for what happens,'' he said in an interview with the left-of-center Paris daily Liberation.

He nonetheless dismissed rumors that he might be forced to resign as a result of the conflict. He said that the culture minister, Catherine Tasca, recently confirmed him as director of the Paris Opera through the end of the 2003-4 season and that he intended to stay at his post.